Amit Chaudhuri in Conversation

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School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

A conversation with Amit Chaudhuri, winner of the 2022 James Tait Black Biography Prize, launching Sweet Shop: New and Selected Poems (NYRB)

50 George Square Lecture Theatre (G.03)

<h2>About the event</h2>Named ‘the best living writer of the English sentence’ by Aditya Chakrabortty, Amit Chaudhuri’s work – as poet, novelist, essayist, memoirist, critic, editor, and musician – is characterised by liberation, exploration, and a deep integrity of vision and voice.In this event to launch Sweet Shop: New and Selected Poems (published by the New York Review of Books), Amit Chaudhuri will read from his poems, introduce some of the photographs from the ‘bizarre art project’ that inspired the Sweet Shop section, and discuss the place of poetry in his creative life. The poems will also offer a point of entry into his wider oeuvre and interventions in literature and culture. This aims to open conversations on marginalised forms of writing, the ‘creative’ and the ‘critical’, the relations between creative freedom and the pressures of the professional market – and on the ways in which, as one of the poems collected here has it, ‘So much of the world / is what we imagine’.The conversation will be followed by a reception, open to all and generously sponsored by NYRB, from 6pm to 7pm.This event is part of the James Tait Black Visiting Writers Programme, launched in 2023 thanks to the generosity of former JTB Prize winner Tatjana Soli. For more information, visit the James Tait Black Prize website.<a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Visit the James Tait Black Prize website</a>Amit Chaudhuri will be participating in a number of other events as part of the Programme, including a masterclass for students, a reading group, and a musical performance entitled 'This is Not Fusion' with Adam Moore, Matt Hodges, and Christian Ferlaino, hosted by the UNESCO Week of Sound.<a href="https://digital.eca.ed.ac.uk/weekofsound/this-is-not-fusion/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Visit the event page for 'This is Not Fusion'</a>

<h2>About the speaker</h2>Amit Chaudhuri is a renowned novelist, essayist, poet, and musician. Among the prizes his fiction and non-fiction have received are the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the Government of India’s Sahitya Akademi Award, the Infosys Prize, and the James Tait Black Prize. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.His book, Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (2021), about his relationship with North Indian classical music, won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography in 2022.<aside>Photo credit: Richard Lofthouse</aside>

<h2>About the Visiting Writer Programme</h2>The James Tait Black Visiting Writers Programme was established in 2023, thanks to a donation from Tatjana Soli who won the James Tait Black Prize for fiction in 2011 for her debut novel, The Lotus Eaters. The gift from the writer will also enable a project to create a James Tait Black Prize Library and Archive at the University Main Library.The JTB Visiting Writers Programme invites authors who have won or been shortlisted for the JTB Prizes in Fiction or Biography to visit the University of Edinburgh to engage in a range of possible activities. These can include a public lecture or interview, a masterclass or workshop, or participation in roundtables or collaborative work. The Programme seeks to enable a deeper exploration of JTB writers' work and to nurture sustained and creative connections between the University community and the writers the Prizes seek to honour.Visits are organised flexibly, for longer or shorter periods, across the year. The Programme is supplementary to any annual award ceremony, and invitations are not limited to writers shortlisted in a current year.<a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">V﻿isit the James Tait Black Prize website</a>

<h3>Access and recording</h3>Please note that this is a free, in-person event held on the University of Edinburgh campus that will also be live streamed - you can choose either an in-person or online ticket. The event will be recorded, and/or photographed, and added to the University website afterwards. If you would prefer not to appear in any recordings or photos, please contact us in advance or speak to us on the day. It's not a problem.

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